


Common Ground

by Frangipanidownunder



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Civil War AU, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-16
Updated: 2017-09-16
Packaged: 2018-12-30 09:15:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12105501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frangipanidownunder/pseuds/Frangipanidownunder
Summary: This is for @txf-prompt-box challenge An American Civil War AU, no MSR, Mulder is a Confederate.Warning: I know nothing about the Civil War and I had to google as I was writing but here it is and no doubt full of inaccuracies, all of which are my own.





	Common Ground

His horse was all but lame and he dismounted as the sun sunk below the hills. The stream gurgled and it was a shock to hear nothing but the rhythms of nature. He was sure he’d lost the hearing in his right ear. It throbbed from the wound and he touched it tentatively, the congealed blood sticky. He walked the horse to the water and it drank. He crouched next to it and brought a handful of cool liquid to his ear, dabbing it with the handkerchief he had in his pocket. It stung but feeling something, anything was better than the numbness that had been his constant companion on the ride out. The horse snuffled and lapped. He patted its side and walked around it, looking at its sore hoof but knowing there was nothing he could do. The wound, where the shoe had come off, was festering. Mulder looked around and, not for the first time, cursed himself for his cowardice. His brother would kill him. If the government troops didn’t get him first.  
He found shelter between several large boulders and lay his gray jacket on the ground for bedding. Exhaustion overcame him, the pain from the bullet graze making him nauseous. He fell into a fitful, feverish sleep and it was no real surprise to wake up facing the barrel of a shotgun.  
What was a surprise was the fact that it was being wielded by a small, red-headed woman, pregnant and angry.  
“Get up.”  
He shielded his face from the morning sun and tried to move, but his limbs were heavy and his chest tight.  
She nudged him with the rifle and repeated her command.  
“I’m trying,” he said, barking out a series of hacking coughs. He rolled onto his side and tried to breathe.  
“You talk funny,” she said.  
“So do you,” he replied.  
“Your horse is lame. You can’t run.”  
He managed to get onto all fours. “Madam, if I could stand up, it would take all my strength.”  
The point of the gun wavered and he chanced a look up at her. Her eyes were fixed on him, but she was chewing her lip. There was a slight tremble in her hands. She was flushed from the exertion of holding the gun.  
“What are you doing here?”  
He was trying to place her accent, Irish or Scottish? He could never tell. And he had no idea what he was doing here. The right side of his head was hot with pain and his jaw locked when he tried to speak.  
“I believe I am trying to die. But there are many people who are stopping me.”  
With that she flipped the gun tip up and dropped it down so the butt hit the ground. “Well, Mr Confederate, don’t let me get in your way. A few hours in this sun and you’ll be a feast for the flies, birds, dogs and anything else that wanders these hills.”  
He flopped down on to his rear and watched her turn to the horse.  
“And you won’t be needing this fellow, so I’m going to take him and mend him and use him for something better than you and your soldier-men have been.” She gathered the reins and led the horse up the bank. It whined in pain and she stopped, rubbing its nose and whispering in that lilting voice.  
“Madam. I would be most happy if you would take the horse and give it a better life. He has been a fine servant and has many years left in him, away from the bloody fields of war.”  
She tutted and looked at him. “Are you a deserter? Are you running from those bloody fields?”  
He shrugged. “Maybe.”  
Her face softened. “That’s probably the best and the worst decision you’ve made Mr Confederate.”  
“Mulder. My name is Mulder.”  
“That’s the strangest name I’ve heard.”  
He chuffed. “Then you don’t know my given name, Madam.”  
“And what would that be?”  
“Fox,” he said.  
She burst into a peel of laughter. And he laughed then. He hadn’t laughed in months. Not since he’d met his brother Samuel at the port and let himself be convinced that fighting in this war was the right thing to do. Samuel’s employer was a wealthy businessman who stood to lose his living, his standing in the community if the Unionists won. Samuel, young and impressionable, wrote to Fox and requested that he sail to America and fight with him. Fox thought he would be able to convince Samuel to return to Holland with him but he was spirited and tenacious and wouldn’t leave. Fox had no choice but to sign up and look out for his brother. But in the end, Samuel had disappeared in a battle, just vanished during the bitterest of fighting, gun smoke thick in the air, cannon-fire booming, horses terrified and charging through the men. Gone.  
Fox looked for days, in the makeshift hospitals, folding back the sheets from the faces of the dead, scouring the encampments. After months with no sign, his unit marched into another battle and he rode with through the Unionists, not even bothering to shoot or defend himself. He had no desire to fight, he didn’t even understand the war. He wanted to return home but his father would blame him for the loss of Samuel. And so it was easier just to die.  
But somehow, he survived with just the wound to his ear and he just kept riding and riding.  
The horse whinnied and she looked beyond him to the black hills.  
“Looks like your men might be coming. Good luck, Mr Fox Mulder.”  
He turned onto his stomach and laid his head to the ground, listening to the thundering of hooves. Dust flew into his mouth and he spat it out. He didn’t want to die with the bitter taste of America on his tongue.  
“When is your baby coming, Madam?” he asked, pushing himself back round. If he was going to die, he wanted to see something beautiful before he did. This redheaded woman, her rounded belly filled with life and hope. Sometimes life is beautiful. He hoped in his next life he would be blessed with children.  
“Any day.”  
“Your husband is a very lucky man,” he said.  
She stopped and looked at him, a single tear trickling down her face. “My husband is dead. Fighting you people.”  
“I’m sorry, Madam. No good comes from war. This I have learned.”  
She rubbed away the tear and dropped her hand to her stomach, resting it on the bump. “Our child will know he was fighting for the right side, at least. What will your children think of your choices?”  
The horses were closing in and he shook his head. “That I have no children to let down is perhaps my best achievement, Madam.”  
She nodded and small smile brightened her face. “You are as strange as your name, Mr Fox Mulder. Perhaps you are even a kind man. In another life, it is possible that we would have found some common ground.”  
He smiled at her. “Do you believe in reincarnation?”   
She laughed. “I am a Catholic, Mr Mulder. What do you think?”  
“Then perhaps we will meet again, Madam…?”  
“Minette. Dana Minette.”


End file.
